


Like a Memory

by Duck_Life



Category: X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Mojoworld, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-03
Updated: 2018-10-03
Packaged: 2019-07-24 11:37:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16174289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duck_Life/pseuds/Duck_Life
Summary: Every day, Longshot learns more about the world and how it works, and where he fits into it.





	Like a Memory

 

> _Here comes the rain again  
>  __Falling on my head like a memory  
>  __Falling on my head like a new emotion._  
>  \- The Eurythmics

 

Longshot grimaces, smacking his lips together. “You alright?” Alison asks from the table. She’d raided Sean and Moira’s fridge to make herself a sandwich.

“My lips are dry,” Longshot explains from his seat at the window bench. He was eating dry cereal out of the box, taking the time to examine each individual piece before popping it in his mouth, but for the past few minutes he’s just been staring out at the landscape of Muir Island. “Alison, could you please pass me my bag? It has my chapstick in it.”

“Sure,” she says, mildly amused. She hands him the brown messenger bag and he starts rummaging through it, pulling out a screwdriver, a Pez dispenser and a Donald Duck figurine in the process. “Jeez, what all do you keep in there?”

“Things I find,” he says, pulling out his chapstick and uncapping it. “I didn’t steal anything! If that’s what you’re wondering. Just things I found and collected, things that make me feel happy.”

She watches as he carefully puts the screwdriver, the Pez dispenser and the Donald Duck figurine back in his bag. “Can I see?”

“Sure!” He bounds up from the window seat and goes to sit across from her at the table, opening up his bag for her to check out the contents. “If you want some of the diamonds, take them. I’ve been trying to get rid of them for ages.”

She considers that for a moment— they certainly _look_ real— but decides the diamonds are probably safer with Longshot. Instead, she pulls out a cassette tape. “Eurythmics?” she says. It’s a good album, “Touch.” She owns a copy herself. “You like the Eurythmics?”

“I like that,” he says, pointing at the cassette. “I like the words it says on the back. ‘No Hate, No Pain, No Broken Hearts.’ And ‘Here Comes The Rain Again.’ I like reading those words. I like the picture on the front, too.”

Alison stares at him. “Have you… _listened_ to it?”

He stares back at her, confused. “It doesn’t make any noise.”

“Well, no, silly, you have to play it,” she says. He still looks lost. “Hang on.” Alison goes into the other room and comes back with her Walkman. “Like this.” She puts the cassette into the player and slides the headphones over Longshot’s ears. She presses play.

His face lights up as he starts listening to the first song. “Music!” he shouts, no sense of his own volume when he’s wearing the headphones. “There was music in that box!”

“Yep,” Alison says, grinning. His expression, and the sheer amazement at what he’s hearing, takes her back to listening to her grandmother’s records for the first time. “You like it?”

“I love it!” he yells back. “Thank you, Alison!”

* * *

 “Ali, you would tell me the truth, right?”

“Yeah,” Alison shrugs, not sure if Longshot’s about to ask some deep metaphysical question about human morality or whether the Tooth Fairy is real. It can always go either way, with him. “Of course.”

“Am I ugly?”

Alison lets out a sharp laugh of surprise, gets ready to tell him he’s just about the hottest dish on the East Coast, but then she sees the look on his face. He’s serious. He’s really, _really_ serious. “Longshot… no, honey, you’re not ugly at all,” she says. “How could you think that? You’re so… sweet, and good, and that all just shines out of you. Too many people are good-looking and they know it, and it makes them arrogant. You’re handsome— beautiful— just by being genuine and true to yourself.”

* * *

 His hands glide over Alison’s arms, raising goosebumps when his odd fingers reach her elbows. “Wh— what are you doing?” she asks, startled.

Longshot jumps, looking mildly abashed. “I’m sorry! It’s just, human skin… it’s so soft. I’ve never felt anything like it.”

Alison blushes, looking down at her own arms. “Well, I moisturize.”

Longshot keeps looking at her hands, at her forearms. “May I…?”

“Sure, why not?”

He touches her arms again, skimming across the soft skin of her inner arms. “Amazing,” he marvels.

Behind them, Rogue sets down her book with a quiet _thump_ and stalks out, her streaked hair streaming angrily behind her.

“Oh no,” Longshot mumbles, taking his hands away from Alison’s arms. “Rogue can’t touch _anyone’s_ skin… and no one can touch hers.”

“Yeah, well,” Alison starts, but he’s already turning away to follow Rogue. “Longshot!”

In the hallway, Longshot tears after Rogue and puts a hand on her shoulder to stop her. She whirls around. “What? What d’you want?” she scowls, obviously trying to hide the pained look on her face.

Wordlessly, Longshot grabs her gloved hand, holds it between his own hands. Rogue watches with wide eyes as his thumbs sweep over the fabric of her glove. “They’re leather,” Longshot says. “Your gloves. People tell me my skin feels like leather to them.” He smiles slightly, clasping her hand. “So your gloves feel the same as my skin. And that’s nice, too.”

Rogue shakes her head. “You’re so weird,” she says, shrugging and turning away. He can’t see it, but she’s smiling.

* * *

 A little while after Alison and Longshot vanish into the living quarters on Utopia, Terry tugs on Monet’s sleeve. “Hey, look what I found in Longshot’s bug-out bag,” she says, waving a black leather-bound journal around. “It’s his little black book. Shall we?”

“Aw, Terry, we shouldn’t,” Monet says.

Terry raises an eyebrow. “Are you serious?”

“Nope,” Monet says, grabbing for the book. “But for the record, I said ‘Aw, Terry, we shouldn’t.’ Like, if we get caught.”

“Got it,” Terry says, and then the two of them huddle together to pore over the contents of the book. “Wonder what names are in here. I’m really curious to know if he and Shatterstar ever had a thing.”

“Aren’t they related?”

“God, who knows,” Terry says. She flips open the cover. The first page, instead of having a list of names and phone numbers, just has a _Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_ sticker that says DON’T PANIC. Monet shrugs, and Terry turns another page.

In Longshot’s sketchy, childish handwriting, it says: _You are called Longshot. You’re from Mojoworld, but now you live on Earth. The most important thing you need to remember is to keep your motives pure and your heart honest._

Monet looks at Terry. “What the hell is this?”

The next page of the journal has a more detailed explanation of Longshot’s powers and how they work. After that, there’s a list labeled _People you can trust_ and _People you can’t trust_. The second column has a couple names Monet recognizes— Mojo, Spiral. She thinks she sees Pip’s name, but on second glance it actually says Pup, whoever that is.

The _People you can trust_ list is longer. Alison Blaire, Rogue, Ororo Munroe, Piotr Rasputin, Kurt Wagner. Shatterstar. The name Rita, but crossed out. And further down the page— Jamie Madrox, Julio Richter, Layla Miller. Theresa Cassidy. Monet St. Croix. When she sees her own name, Monet’s stomach sours.

“We shouldn’t be looking at this,” she admits.

“He writes everything down because he knows he might forget,” Terry says, shutting the journal. “My God. What must it be like, living like that?”

“I think we just saw,” Monet says. “Put the book back, Terry.”

She does.

* * *

 The night after Mojo II: The Sequel is cancelled for good, Longshot can’t sleep. He steps outside for some fresh air (as fresh as air gets on Mojoworld, anyway) and finds Spiral standing a few feet away.

“Good evening,” he says pleasantly enough, because the time for fighting isn’t now. “I want to thank you for—”

“I didn’t aid the rebellion for you,” she spits, four of her hands balled into fists while the other two arms hang at her sides. “So you have no need to thank me.”

“I’m grateful all the same.”

“Whatever,” Spiral says. “It is over now. You and I are even. We owe each other nothing.”

“Rita—”

“ _Don’t_ ,” she says, and for the first time in a long time her voice isn’t cold or angry, but genuinely pleading, genuinely sad. “I only came here to tell you that you won’t be seeing me for awhile. Whoever takes over this rock is on their own. For now, anyway.”

“I’m sure we’ll see each other again.” He smiles. “You always bounce back.” The ghost of a memory scratches at the back of his brain— _Hey, they don’t call me Ricochet for nothing._

“Goodbye, Longshot,” Spiral says, and she begins her dance. In the blink of an eye, she’s gone, and he’s alone in the night.

* * *

 “Memories, shmemories,” Longshot sighs, waving his hand dismissively. “Memories can be changed or taken away. Emotions can’t, though. My friend Wolverine told me that. … At least, I think he did.”

* * *

 When Ali gets tired of the constant bickering between Alex and Rogue, she disappears down to the lake. This time, Longshot comes too. He finds her skipping rocks from the edge of the pier. “Wow!” he remarks, watching a stone skip three times before plummeting. “Can you teach me how to do that?”

“It’s not much different than throwing your knives,” she says. “Here.” Alison stands behind him, showing him how to hold the rock and how to throw it from his hip. She’s suddenly incredibly aware of how close he is, his double pulse, the fact that he smells like he used her shampoo. “Alright, now try,” she says, reluctant to step away.

Longshot flicks the stone into the water and it plunks in without even skipping once. She coughs out a laugh, feeling kind of bad. “Eh, it took me awhile to get it right, too,” she says, patting him on the shoulder. “I’m surprised, though, what about your luck powers?”

He looks bashful. “I don’t think my motives were pure,” he explains. “I was trying to impress you.”

* * *

 “I can’t imagine growing up here,” Ali admits, looking around at the rocky terrain of the rebel base on Mojoworld.

“I’m not sure I did,” Longshot says, taking her hand. Off her confused look, he explains himself. “I mean, I was created here. But that’s just it— created. I was made, not born, so… so I didn’t grow up here at all. I didn’t grow up.”

She thinks about that for a moment, and then she shrugs. “That’s okay, love,” she says, squeezing his hand. “I’m not sure I really grew up, either.”

* * *

 “You’re sure this is alright?” Longshot asks Ororo for the fifteenth time. “I’m… I’m not like you or Wolverine. I’m not used to this… being a hero, or even being a person. Maybe I would be better suited to the New Mutants team.”

“Don’t worry,” Ororo promises, smiling brightly at him. “You’re ready.” She guides him down the hallway toward the Danger Room, only instead of getting dropped there by a portal this time he’s actually going to train. “Welcome to the X-Men, Longshot. Hope you survive the experience.” 


End file.
